Jason O'Donnell

Recently stayed a couple of miles away from a number of filming locations used in TV’s LOST, the week that the show wound up it’s last season. Seeing the sites in their “civilian dress” was pretty surreal. The huts shown here are the YMCA camp Erdman located on the North Shore of Ohau.

Google have just added pretty 3D buildings into their Earth app for my home town, Melbourne. Here’s a side by side comparison of some real footage I took from my old office vs a similar view from Google Earth. I didn’t have a lot of video to chose from to do this comparison so there are some zooms in the original footage that I couldn’t replicate in Earth because their zoom tool actually changes the viewer’s location in space and zooming out is unwieldy thanks to the frustrating interface. But I think the video demonstrates how well Melbourne is modelled in the app.

A beautiful entry at the Letters Of Note website detailing a card sent to the Woomera Rocket Range in Australia, 1957, by a little boy named Denis Cox. Denis provided the rocket scientists a helping hand with future space craft design offering his concept of a Rolls Royce Jet Engined-powered two man vehicle- but beyond that, the scientists would have to “put in other details”. Turns out 52 years later he’s been tracked down (see article comments) and he’s still waiting for a reply.

The Fawcett House is one of the most beautiful examples of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work- now for sale, US$2.7m. Sitting on 80 acres of farmland at Los Banos CA, it boasts 6 bedrooms and 60’s decor unchanged by its one owner.

Fallingwater in PA is my dream home- the type of house I can imagine myself plotting my evil schemes in. But since it’s a museum now I’ll never own it. Have a look at the pics of Fawcett, it’s absolutely gorgeous.

I’ve been struggling with a broken rib that’s taken ages to heal. My Osteopath asked me about what kind of bag I carry around, and I just described it as a normal satchel bag. She asked me to think about what I might be able to take out of it. Of course, everything I thought of was ESSENTIAL, so the only way I was going to do the job properly was if I completely emptied the bag and individually justified each piece as it went back in. Here’s a pic of what came out. After the jump see the list. It’s actually a very cathartic exercise.

Leather satchel bag.
A couple of letters regarding health insurance and other stuff I need for my accountant.
St Kilda football club membership card and holder.
Movie passes. Heaps of them, more than I could ever use. I give them out to shop people/baristas who I think ROCK.
Ahem. THINGS. Yeah. I’m a responsible boy.
A few bills and stuff that I havent bothered with yet.
Chequebook. Good I hate this thing. SO 20th century.
Sanyo Xacti HD1000 video camera- it travels everywhere with me- even to the corner store. You never know when you’ll see the next big news.
Clipper Attachment.
In season pass to The Savages.
LED Lenser torch. It’s badass. It’ll blind you and not say sorry.
Medicare receipts.
Eye drops, Voltarin and panadiene forte for pain relief, Nexium to counter the indigestion from the Voltarin, and Difflam drops for sore throats.
Lotto ticket that I’ll never check.
Backup wallets. One legitimately holds cards that don’t hit in my day to day wallet, the other was just replaced but I don’t have the heart to throw it out.
Leatherman Skeletool multitool.
HSDPA wireless modem.
Just a pen.
Remote Access token.
Three, yes THREE, sets of iPod head phones. I dont know why I have this many in my bag. Oh, and a Belkin head phone adaptor for 1st Gen iPhone.
Cabcharge vouchers.
Apple Macbook Pro 15 inch.
Chapstick. ESSENTIAL.
Redskins. If you don’t know what they are, there’s no point explaining it.
Sony digital AM/FM radio.
Accessories from an Indiana Jones action figure.
iPod transfer cable, mostly used to charge my iPhone.
SD memory card adapter.
Car and house keys.
SD card adapters. No idea why they’re there, I have no need for them.
Sunglasses.
My Field Notes notebook and a pen.
Nintendo DS and a couple of stylii.
Bluetooth headset that I never use.
iPod classic.

As a teenager I got so much out of model aircraft building; it taught me one of life’s greatest lessons- that you get out of something only what you put in. Model kits do come with instructions, but they don’t come with a manual. They tell you how parts should connect together and in what order, but they don’t reveal the nuances of the work involved in making something really great. Each of my model kits were built with an increasing attention to detail as I learnt new little processes and tricks along the way. Again and again I would learn by mistakes- little shortcuts I’d make would cause big strife at the end- so I would never cut corners. For example, while they were on the sprue I would paint the entire inside of an aircraft’s fuselage and wings even if I was sure that only the cockpit would be visible, because on just one kit, one time, it was visible through a wheel well. I really believe those lessons have shaped the way I do my job now.

So anyway, I visit a hobby store the other day and the walls of model kits have been replaced with boxes of diecast models. All premade, prepainted. It was clear that the market for kits has nearly dried up.

I’m all for diecast models; to be honest, a few are in my bookcase. But where’s the thrill in the assembly? The joy of a good well done? Ok, on to my idea.

How about when you buy a diecast model, online or in a store, you get a download or a CD with an application written in Flash. It’s an app that has you assemble the model in 3D. It wouldn’t be something you could knock together in an hour or so- it should take hours to “virtually” remove each piece from the sprue, trim off flash with a virtual knife, apply paint and glue etc. When finished, not only would the builder have a great 3D model that they could spin around and view from different angles, but they could insert the model into different scenes or place them into virtual hangers with their other models. Once the application determines that a kit is complete, it would reveal a redemption code that the user would send back to the online retailer or store and their diecast model would finally ship to them or be available for pickup. Their work in assembling the kit would be rewarded with a finished model.

Looking through the NASA PR shots of the recent launch of Shuttle mission STS120 Discovery, I found this photo- a spider has been caught in the frame and is enough in focus to make it look like a giant arachnid is falling off the shuttle as it takes off. The cobweb above it adds to the illusion as it looks like it’s hanging from the tip of the fuel tank.

These giant spiders will devour us all!

I’m not sure if this video clip was done as a music video for Royksopp’s “Remind Me”, or if the clip was done on it’s own merits and then set to the music. But it’s ubercool- a workday in the life of a young British woman done in info graphics style- her entire day is quantified, labeled and expanded for detail, from the nutritional value of what she eats to floorplan views of her building as she ascends in the elevator. Dancing pie charts. It’s like Wired Magazine come alive, which is kinda funny because I found it at Bruce Sterling’s Wired blog.

I challenge anyone not to feel on top of the world after watching this video clip. Not only is Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger an awesome track, but the clip explores an office that looks fun, young, hip… somewhere we’d all love to belong but nothing like where we work. Damn you Web 2.0 somethings and your shaggy hair and youthful exuberance. You made a killer video clip.